Deep Impact launch, cold ancient Earth and an alien appearance primer

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars – Astronomers say a dusty disc swirling around the nearby star Vega is larger than earlier thought. It was probably caused by collisions of objects, perhaps as large as the planet Pluto, up to 2,000 kilometers in diameter. See article.
g Abodes – A new discovery suggests that ancient earth was much colder than previously thought — a discovery that has broad implications for those studying the earth's climate. See article.
g Life – Scientists have discovered a form of blue-green algae that lives independently in California's Salton Sea, using near-infrared light for photosynthesis, according to an article published in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. See article.
g Intelligence – Language has long been considered one of the defining characteristics for humans, but recent work with Tamarin monkeys and rats suggest that picking up speech cues has a rhythmic quality throughout the mammalian world. See article. Note: This article is a few years old.
g Cosmicus – A daring scientific mission to smash a washing machine-sized bullet into the heart of Comet Tempel 1, excavating a stadium-sized crater to reveal primitive materials left from the solar system's creation for spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes to observe, is poised for blastoff at 12:47 p.m. CST today aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral. See article.
g Learning – Good news for our children: A committee revising Kansas’ science education standards and how evolution is taught has left creationism out of the curriculum. See article.
g Imagining – Speculation about aliens has typically been left to science fiction authors, science fiction readers and Hollywood writers and directors. But what if we apply what we have learned about life on Earth to speculate about what alien life forms might be like? Here’s a primer: article.
g Aftermath – Let’s presume we have detected an extraterrestrial intelligence. We cannot tell for sure if the message was intended for us, or what it means. What should we do? Click here for some speculations.

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